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03 December 2010

First Friday Folder: Goodale & Clough

With all my agony over changing templates last month, I completely forgot to do a First Friday Folder. Did anyone miss it?

This month, I picked a folder of which I had absolutely no idea what it needed. It was labeled "Goodale ... Clough," which in my system means that it is a catch-all folder for those surnames and their ancestors: I haven't made folders for the couples and haven't printed out any family group sheets.

The Goodale/Clough folder has about 23 sheets in it: excerpts from some un-sourced online pedigrees, some book excerpts from Heritage Quest, and some database printouts from New England Historical Genealogical Society. This seems to be some of the info I used to add the names to my database, but it has no organization and I did not leave myself any notes let anlone anything resembling a plan. My goal for today is to make folders, print family group sheets, examine sources, and make a general plan for each couple.

So, first, I printed out Mehitable Clough's portion of the pedigree chart:

Then, I checked the file drawer and found that I had followed my system: I don't have a folder for any of these couples. That means that these names were entered into by database when I was more of a name collector than a genealogist, so there's no telling what these family group sheets will look like....

I've made 9 folders now and printed out the corresponding 9 family group sheets. Most were only 2-3 pages long and have source lists looking like this excerpt:

I guess it could have been worse. It looks as though it's been about 5 years since I've looked at any of these names. There are very few primary sources but some reputable secondary sources and definitely a good lead for further solid research.

The General Plan
I need to start with Mehitable Clough and Thomas Goodell, finding primary sources for all events for them and their children. (I believe they are my fifth-great-grandparents.) Then, I can work back through their ancestors, one couple at a time.

Martin Hollick's New Englanders in the 1600s [1] shows several good sources available for most of these names. The first thing that strickes me is that 'Goodale' is a varient for 'Goodell.' I don't think I knew that before.

Conclusion
This has been a secretarial, housekeeping week: making organized folders so I will have a place ready for filing the new research I need to do. These lines seem to have a good deal of established research attached to them. I think I just need to verify and document it. I think research will be easier now, if only because I didn't have the Hollick book five years ago.

Sources

Pedigree and source excerpts cropped from my personal database, which uses Ancestral Quest software. [I am very proud of finally figuring out a way to easily get a nice looking pedigree chart into this blog!]

[1] Martin E. Hollick, New Englanders in the 1600s: A Guide to Genealogical Research Published Betwee 1980 and 2005. Boston: New England Historical Genealogical Society, 2006.